EBT Restaurant: The Young and the Restless
You don’t hear much about EBT Restaurant these days.
- Missouri Valley Special Collections
- The big store, before the wrecking ball.
Adam Horner, the 28-year-old general manager of the upscale restaurant located inside the United Missouri Bank building at 1310 Carondelet Drive, would like to change that. (And yes, the Korean-born Kansas State graduate is related, sort of, to former KCTV chief meteorologist Katie Horner; Katie’s first husband Dan is Adam’s cousin). Horner and his executive chef, 33-year-old Tate Roberts, are utilizing social media to bring the 32-year-old restaurant to the attention of a young dining audience who might not even know the classy venue even exists. And if they do, they may not know why it’s called EBT. Why would they? The restaurant’s namesake, the old Emery Bird Thayer department store in downtown Kansas City was razed long before Adam Horner and Tate Roberts were born.
But it’s high time that a new generation discovered EBT, particularly now that two other unique special occasion restaurants of the same vintage — Skies and the Peppercorn Duck Club — are scheduled to close by the end of this year. EBT is also one of the few local restaurants left that still offer Caesar salad prepared tableside and for dessert, Bananas Foster (also created tableside) and steaming, airy dessert souffles. Even better, chef Tate Roberts has created a first-rate dinner menu that’s competitively priced. The costliest steak on the menu, this restaurant’s signature beef tenderloin medallions in a peppercorn sauce, is $32.95. (But no longer prepared tableside, like the old days). Roberts took off the $80 chateaubriand steak for two a while back. No one was ordering it anymore.
